Over 2 years earlier, I read one of my favored e-mail e-newsletters when I scrolled to the bottom of the e-mail and saw the beehiiv logo for the very first time. I clicked it and quickly started wrecking Newsletter Operator.
I wasn’t certain why I really felt so psychological.
Being a full-time maker is tough. I’m often obtaining pitched various tools and services that do not seem to be worth my time.
I think I was emotional due to the fact that I spent the last 6 months trying out different email and newsletter systems to aid construct my newsletter. And to be reasonable, there are some wonderful options for creating e-newsletters. But I couldn’t find one that made me provide a precise “yes”.
The concern with many existing e-newsletter systems is that they don’t really feel creator-centered. I want an e-newsletter platform that lets me totally customize my newsletter designs, makes it incredibly easy to compose and send emails, and gives me devices that help me examine metrics and get even more customers.
I believe I’ve lastly discovered the appropriate tool.
However, I know beehiiv might not be for everyone. So let’s dive deep and see if it’s actually ideal for you.
What is beehiiv?
beehiiv is an all-in-one system for newsletters. It’s a creator-friendly e-newsletter platform that makes it easy to style, write, send, advertise, monetize, and track the ROI of your newsletter.
Created by previous workers at the well-known newsletter business Morning Brew, beehiiv aims to help makers launch and monetize their own newsletter– taking lots of growth concepts from taking Morning Brew to over 4M clients.
In this short article, I’m going to discuss my personal experience with beehiiv, the important things I love (and hate) regarding it, all of it’s features, and why I determined to ultimately select it as my newsletter system of choice.
My personal experience with beehiiv
A couple of months ago, I accidentally stumbled across beehiiv. The funny story is that I’ve been on the lookout for a modern-day e-newsletter system for quite some time now. I have actually postponed hard when it pertained to lastly releasing my newsletter.
First, I tried Mailchimp. Then, a couple of other indie systems. Then, Substack. And ultimately, I wound up making use of beehiiv.
I make certain many newsletter makers respect popular newsletters with millions of clients– I know I do. The Morning Brew e-newsletter is one I respected a great deal. They have fantastic content, lots of customers, and a smart referral program that enables them to get back at a lot more subscribers.
So, I took place a search to identify exactly how these huge e-newsletters set up their logistics. What platform do they use? How do they track the ROI of their newsletters? How do they get more subscribers? How do they create an e-newsletter layout that remains on-brand?
When I discovered beehiiv for the first time, it seemed to address every one of my concerns. I believed to myself, “damn the people that developed this tool really comprehend e-newsletter development and growth.” I questioned who these makers of beehiiv were.
So I mosted likely to LinkedIn, and saw that the founders were several of the first marketing and development workers at Morning Brew– my brain took off.
I understood this was going to be a various e-newsletter platform. One that’s focused on creator growth.
Due to the fact that, any kind of maker understands, you require growth to be able to make a living off of a newsletter. And locating the appropriate e-newsletter pile (that scales) frequently implies utilizing numerous various devices to aid accomplish one goal– one system for your newsletter, one platform to generate income from, and one system to set up referrals. It can get pricey.
So when I learnt beehiiv did every one of these points in one system, and it was free to begin utilizing, it was a no-brainer to give it a try.
Who is beehiiv for?
beehiiv is for the lean material maker that wants a platform that permits them to send out customized e-newsletters with or without needing to have a web site.
One of the most successful e-newsletters have the right devices to build and scale their e-newsletters. beehiiv aims at offering you those devices.
If you’re an independent author, media business, startup, or material maker, you must seriously considering experimenting with beehiiv. It’s totally complimentary to begin and you only pay when you get to over 2,500 subscribers on your listing.
If you actually wind up needing to spend for beehiiv it’s possibly an excellent sign that people like reading your stuff.
beehiiv vs Substack
You could be asking, “isn’t there currently a platform for writers called Substack?”.
Yes, yes there is. Substack is a wonderful platform made use of by countless independent authors. With Substack you obtain your own web site and use the platform as your all-in-one service for sending emails (while creating an archive of previous issues).
What sets beehiiv apart is it’s dedication to development. beehiiv permits you do to all the things Substack can do, with the benefit of far better analytics, even more style flexibilty, and a referral program to urge your existing subscribers to obtain the word out.
beehiiv additionally provides you a web site similar to Substack. However, if you have your own internet site already, you can additionally utilize beehiiv’s sign-up installs (that’s what I utilize) to send your website customers straight to your beehiiv email listing. On the very same token, you can integrate beehiiv with a tool like Revue to allow people to subscribe to your newsletter directly from Twitter.
This offers you the versatility to utilize different marketing channels to obtain your e-newsletter out into the globe, making beehiiv a terrific Substack choice.
How to start making use of beehiiv e-mail marketing software application.
Sign up for a free plan
The very first step is to register for a free plan. You can do this by clicking on the “Beginning trial” button on beehiiv’s internet site.
The free plan will enable you to have up to 2,500 customers, provide you accessibility to internet site hosting, an e-newsletter CMS, development personalization, analytics, exterior embed types, and extra. It’s a very charitable offering for those just starting out (or for those seeking a new platform to migrate to).
Onboarding Newsletter Operator
After creating an account, you’ll experience an onboarding process that will ask points like, “is this your first e-newsletter?”, “what other systems have you utilized?”, “do you have any type of paying subscribers?”, and more.
You’ll then produce a name and URL for your e-newsletter’s site. On the free plan, your e-newsletter will reside on a beehiiv subdomain. So if your newsletter is called “Baking Cakes,” your internet site link may be something like “baking-cakes. beehiiv.com”.
Throughout the onboarding procedure, you’ll also choose your brand design and colors to make sure your e-newsletter template looks right.
Browsing your dashboard
As soon as you reach your primary dashboard, you’ll see all of your analytics and settings.
You will certainly have outlined info on how many sign-ups you’re obtaining and from where.
In the sidebar, you’ll see choices for “Start composing,” “Blog posts,” “Audience,” “Expand,” “Monetize,” “Style,” and” Examine.” And at the very lower you’ll see the settings choice.
Control panel is your main nerve center (screenshot above), Begin creating is where you create and release e-newsletters, Blog posts is where you can see every one of your previous newsletter editions, Target market is where you can watch who your clients are (and damage them down into sectors), Expand is where you have access to a referral program (and development tutorials) and boosts to run ads, Monetize is where you can access the beehiiv ad network and monetize your e-newsletter with advertisements, Layout is where you make your e-newsletter landing page and blog post template, Assess is where you can see all your analytics, and Settings is where you can take care of all of your admin things.
Creating your e-newsletter
beehiiv makes it very easy to begin composing, with little to no friction. If you’re just beginning, and have an idea you intend to discuss, I suggest simply mosting likely to the “Create” area in the navbar and clicking “Start creating”.
You can modify your template and designing later on– concentrate on the web content first.
As you can see, beehiiv’s editor offers a clean and straightforward interface for creating.
As soon as you begin writing, you can maximize headings, add web links, and style your web content just how you such as.
beehiiv offers you tons of alternatives for different kinds of content like videos, web links, photos, and more.
The team at beehiiv is likewise continuously launching product feature and updates so I’m sure there will be a great deal extra content features depending on when you’re reading this.
Enhancing your setups and templates
As soon as you have an e-newsletter that’s ready to send out, it’s time to design your email template and change some setups.
Here, you can upgrade the name of your e-newsletter, provide it a description, include your logo design, activate or off a welcome e-mail to first time subscribers, and a lot more.
Next off, you can head over to the “Email Template” tab to make your style.
You can modify history colors, boundaries, spacing, fonts, image styles, and a lot more. I’m not mosting likely to go through ever single point you can maximize with your email template due to the fact that it’s a great deal. Simply try out the platform free of charge and see it on your own!
Necessary beehiiv features
beehiiv has tons of amazing features that make it a terrific publishing platform for any kind of e-newsletter designer.
Right here are a few of the important features you can locate with beehiiv:.
Newsletter builder
At its core, beehiiv is a newsletter posting platform. It makes it super very easy to compose and send out e-mails. I discussed above some of the things you can do with your settings and email style so I’ll save you some additional analysis.
Things to keep in mind with beehiiv’s e-newsletter builder is that it has a truly contemporary and minimalistic feeling. It’s absolutely one of the far better email editors I’ve ever written in.
Internet site hosting
When you create a beehiiv e-newsletter, every one of your newsletters (if you want) survive on a site. Think of it as a web site for your newsletter that’s a home to all of your previous concerns of your e-newsletter, and a location where individuals can sign up for your newsletter.
If you recognize with Substack, it’s basically comparable to that.
All plans, including the free one, provide you an internet site. However, the free plan areas your website on a beehiiv subdomain so if you want to include a customized domain to eliminate all the beehiiv branding you’ll need to update to a paid plan.
Subscribe forms
Getting subscribers is important. After all, that’s why you have an e-newsletter right?
With beehiiv, people can register for your newsletter right from your beehiiv website or with embed kinds.
If you currently have a web site, and desire individuals to sign up for your e-newsletter from your existing site, you’ll need to make use of an embed kind. This is what I use on this internet site (you can see the sign-up installed on the right hand column of this article if you scroll up).
With embed forms, you have three various options– a complete width, a taken care of width, and a slim installed. I directly make use of the slim embed.
You can locate the code bit for these embeds in the “Subscribe Forms” tab in your setups.
There’s likewise an alternative for attribution monitoring if you want to forward UTM parameters for tracking functions– quite neat.
Nevertheless, there are a couple of features I desire beehiiv had when it concerned subscribe features. I make certain the group is working with updates for these, but I pointed out a few problems I had in the pros and cons section listed below.
Referral program
One of the amazing things about beehiiv, that I have yet to see in any other newsletter platform, is an option for creating a referral program.
You can urge existing customers on your list to ahead your emails to buddies and associates and if they obtain other individuals to register for your list, you can compensate them. These incentives can be in whatever kind you want. I’ve seem several e-newsletter companies offer incentives in the form of merch and stickers.
This can seriously turn your customers right into a word of mouth development engine for your e-newsletter– giving you one more method for growing your e-mail listing.
Nevertheless, to obtain accessibility to the referral program feature, you’ll need to upgrade to a more premium plan. I’ll review all the plans later in this write-up.
Premium subscriptions
They state all you require to make a living online is 1,000 true followers. Subscription income is most definitely a monster of its very own. If you’re looking for a system to monetize your newsletter, this is it.
With beehiiv, you can produce “premium” problems of your e-newsletter that are only sent out to paying clients. This can be really lucrative depending upon what your e-newsletter has to supply. As an example, Trends.co is a popular premium newsletter that creates millions in profits a year just by having pay-only e-newsletter material.
Information analytics
One of the things I enjoy concerning beehiiv is exactly how tidy and basic the analytics are. You get real-time day on exactly how your newsletter is doing, with open/click rates and client count Newsletter Operator.
You get accessibility to all the metrics you need to obtain a bird-eye view on exactly how your newsletter is actually doing. Logging right into your dashboard and seeing that customer count rise is absolutely a dopamine booster.
beehiiv pricing plans
beehiiv uses four different pricing plans. You can check them out below.
The (complimentary) Launch plan provides you whatever you require to get started and expand your e-newsletter (up to 2,500 customers).
The Scale plan ($ 49/month) gives you everything in the Launch plan with the addition the advertisement network, referral program, custom domain, polls, and access to premium registrations. This is the plan I get on.
The Max plan ($ 109/month) gives you everything in the Grow plan with enhancement of concern assistance and eliminating the beehiiv branding.
All of these plans are quite generous in my opinion.
As an example, if you have 100,000 subscribers you will certainly pay around $329 each month. Instead of some competitors, like Kit (previously ConvertKit), that would bill $679 monthly for the exact same amount– making beehiiv a great Kit choice for lots of individuals.
I’m uncertain exactly how the unit business economics work with this, but beehiiv is absolutely less costly (right now) than what it can be.
beehiiv pros and cons
Naturally, with every platform, it has its advantages and disadvantages. Here are several of the benefits and drawbacks I’ve directly experienced while using beehiiv:
Pros of using beehiiv
Below are a few of the pros of using beehiiv as your newsletter platform of choice:
Easy to set up and start sending e-newsletters for free.
Tidy and modern-day client analytics.
Great deals of versatility with e-mail designs.
Referral program feature.
Site hosting.
Create premium choices to monetize.
Surveys.
To be honest, I have not seen one more newsletter platform that has had the ability to package all of these features together so well.
But obviously, I do not wish to be biased so I’m going to mention some disadvantages.
Disadvantages of using beehiiv
Here are some of the cons I’ve found while using beehiiv:.
Limitations around integrating Webflow and beehiiv.
Limitations around adding custom fonts.
I utilize Webflow as my internet site structure system of selection (I finished from WordPress and Squarespace a long period of time ago). I’m not going to enter too much information why I like Webflow a lot yet you can read my Webflow evaluation if you would love to discover more.
Right now, there actually is no other way I can integrate beehiiv with my Webflow site aside from utilizing an iframe embed. I personally do not such as making use of iframe’s because they often tend to decrease my website a little bit. Whenever a web page on my website (with a beehiiv installed) tons, the sign-up embed is the last point to fill on the web page. It’s really noticeable when you get on a sluggish internet link. Yet I can navigate that.
The major gripe I have is that I can not use a normal Webflow kind (which I enjoy making use of). There are ways around this by utilizing a device like Zapier however that would just add extra costs that I don’t require. To be straightforward, this is even more of a Webflow disadvantage over a beehiiv disadvantage yet I believed I would certainly state it.
Besides that, I still think the pros much surpass the disadvantages below. I’m additionally enthusiastic that Webflow will at some point produce a far better way to integrate with beehiiv.
Conclusion
In general, beehiiv is a fantastic option for anybody wanting to dive into the world of e-mail marketing and newsletters.
The performance of this e-newsletter platform far exceeds several that are currently on the market. And with a charitable free plan, you actually have nothing to shed for trying it.
The paid plans are likewise fairly affordable of what they are. Paying just $329/month to have 100,000 subscribers on your checklist is unusual. If you were to have an e-newsletter with 100k customers, and all of these features beehiiv has, it could cost you well into the thousands monthly.
Anyways, I don’t write testimonial articles commonly. I only do when I in fact make use of the device myself and would certainly advise it to a pal.
I wish you found some quality on whether or not beehiiv is a great platform for you.